


looking at you like a star

by GalaxyOfMe



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Pining, THEY ARE JUST, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, i don't really know how to categorize this uh, so glad that's a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23691490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyOfMe/pseuds/GalaxyOfMe
Summary: Tsukishima can't see himself like Yamaguchi does.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 11
Kudos: 97





	looking at you like a star

**Author's Note:**

> title is from moondust by jaymes young.
> 
> thank you to iinsert-username for being my beta reader for this piece of garbage!!

Yamaguchi was talking and Kei was listening. Okay, maybe half-listening. To be fair, Yamaguchi wasn’t fully paying attention to him either. He was sitting on Kei’s right and was gazing somewhere in the distance. A small smile was on his face, the one he always seemed to have around Kei (for a reason he could never figure out).

It was unusually cold for an August afternoon. They’d passed by the convenience store after practice to pick up some meat buns (already gone at this point) and decided to head to the park nearby to kill time before they inevitably exhausted themselves out and headed home.

The words that came out of Yamaguchi’s mouth failed to reach Kei’s ears, but his soft laugh certainly did. Yamaguchi was watching someone trip over on the sidewalk in the distance.

 _No one is allowed to be this cute while taking joy in someone else’s misery,_ Tsukishima thought idly. But, that wasn’t exactly right either. Yamaguchi didn’t just look cute, he looked _ethereal_ , like nothing could possibly break his good mood. (Maybe that wasn’t a normal way to describe your best friend. But maybe Kei didn’t give a shit about that.) Kei couldn’t help but hope that, even the slightest bit, he was part of the reason why Yamaguchi had begun to look like he could conquer the world as of late.

In the middle of their first year at Karasuno, Yamaguchi had become bright. Not in the same manner as someone as disgustingly sunshiney as Hinata or like the moon as Kei himself, but in his own way. If Hinata was the sun and Kei was the moon, then Yamaguchi was the rest of the galaxy, stars, and everything. He was expansive yet somehow still evergrowing and everchanging. How Yamaguchi had managed to become the cosmos from someone who had once just gazed at them from afar with glimmering eyes, Kei could not understand, but he liked it all the same. Perhaps a little too much.

It was because of that extra bit of something that Kei held onto every crinkle of Yamaguchi’s eye and every sliver of a grin that showed from behind the hand that Yamaguchi was using to halfheartedly cover his mouth. (Kei silently wished Yamaguchi would move his hand, so he could see the unrestrained smile Yamaguchi made. Instead, he only got fragments of it and lived in fear of never being able to see it in its wonderful entirety.)

This laugh was nothing compared to the one Yamaguchi had let out earlier, gasping for breath and clutching his sides like he was about to pass out. Kei hadn’t been able to appreciate that one as much however because he had also been teary-eyed and choking back laughter. (They’d been walking to the park after practice and watched a man on a phone call walk directly into a pole. It’s not mean when people make it so easy to make fun of them.) Surely the universe had something against him for giving him such a great sense of humor.

Now, Kei looked at him wistfully, lips parted and just taking in what he could of the sight. There was something he wanted to say but he couldn’t figure out what or how to even start. Was it something he even _should_ have said?

Yamaguchi. It was always Yamaguchi and he’d been avoiding the fact for so long, but it was inconvenient to do so any longer.

Kei brought a hand up to his neck. It wasn’t cold or itchy but there was a sense of emptiness, building dread, in his stomach and he didn’t get it. He didn’t get Yamaguchi Tadashi in the slightest. Yamaguchi was, well, Yamaguchi, and Kei was himself. It didn’t make any sort of sense.

Kei felt Yamaguchi’s eyes on him as he moved his arm. His giggling had stopped, but the back of his hand still pressed lightly against his lips. He looked like he was waiting for something, for Kei to make a move.

“Why do you like me?” Kei settled on asking. There were other questions, of course, but that one felt like the largest, most overarching one. It meant a lot of things. _Why are we still friends? Why do you tolerate me? Why, why, why do I keep thinking I’m seeing more to you than there is?_

Yamaguchi brought his hand down to his side. He also appeared to be confused by the question, and Kei wasn’t finished talking yet so he remained silent.

“I’m not the greatest friend.” He recalled the many times when Yamaguchi had snapped him out of whatever mood he was stuck in; there was the Tokyo training camp and the small moments since then when Tsukishima had accidentally overexpressed his lack of motivation. Yamaguchi usually just glared at him, threatening something he would never carry through, but Kei got the memo all the same. “I mean, I’m bitter all the time.” Kei didn’t know why he brought this up. Yamaguchi’s optimism always balanced out his pessimism, so why was it bothering him now? Yamaguchi tolerated his dismissive attitude, but maybe that was the issue after all. It was his fault for being afraid of _something_ happening if he decided to be more open after all these years. “And I bleed sarcasm so much I’m surprised I haven’t died of blood loss yet.” That one was just a fact.

“I’m not at all pleasant to be around,” Kei continued, “or patient like you or empathetic or-”

“Shut up.” Yamaguchi spoke in the firmest voice Kei had ever heard from him. It lacked the sharp edge and desperation as “what else do we need but pride”, but the two words had a different meaning than those ones. These words were the warmest way anyone could say something like “shut up”.

Kei looked up at Yamaguchi (he hadn’t even realized he stopped looking), whose hazel eyes were piercing through his own. His gaze was unafraid, fearless, and it was enough to make him smile. (Not literally, of course. It was a smile he kept deep inside, and maybe one day he’d harness enough fearlessness to show it.) His look was stern and his eyebrows furrowed, but his eyes were forgiving and his smile was warm. It seemed like he was looking at Kei like he was his whole world, like he had just discovered something extraordinary and wanted to know much more about, like _he_ was the one filling the universe with moondust and starlight, like he was an answer to a question he never asked. It wasn’t right at all because it was like looking at a reflection of his own emotions.

“Shut up, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi stated.

_Ah._

Kei let out a sigh. (One that might have revealed too much.)

_I see._

“Yeah,” Kei responds softly. His face is warm in the cool weather. Maybe he shouldn’t have worn a coat today. The smile he does show to Yamaguchi is more of a “thanks” than anything. It’s small but Yamaguchi seems to understand that something meaningful has been exchanged between them.

Kei hadn’t even realized how dark it had become. Streaks of sunlight escaped from behind the mountainous landscape in front of them.

Yamaguchi barely noticably moved towards Kei, just enough so that their shoulders brushed. Kei tensed up a bit at the touch, which was dumb because he shouldn’t be acting awkward about such an insignificant thing.

Then, Kei saw Yamaguchi’s smile again and nothing really mattered. He let himself relax and watched the sun disappear below the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> after writing about yamaguchi's laugh for three paragraphs straight, i think i'm also in love with him. also, i will die for Little Shit Yama.
> 
> this is probably the quickest i've ever finished a fic.
> 
> if you liked this i'd appreciate if you let me know :D and if you hated it i'd also appreciate if you let me know lmao


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